2000-2009 Top 40

I thought it would be fun to compile a list of my favorite albums from the last decade. This is only a list of favorites, albums that moved, excited and inspired me most, and that held my interest longest. Several represented a personal shift in my pop music preferences--milestones I suppose--still others deeply captivated me for reasons I can't really explain; exceedingly simple music that managed to be more resistant to satiation than some of the more involved music that I absorbed throughout the 2000s. This certainly isn't an authoritative critical review based on things like innovation and historical significance, it's merely an ordered favorites list. If you feel like I criminally left something off the list, it's probably because I didn't listen to it. I can't hear it all (unfortunately). Some things I have clear reasons for placing at certain points in my list, and others I basically had to go by feel. Some of the choices that I have a strongly communicable feeling about will have little blurbs next to them. I started with my top 10, then when I was satisfied with those choices, I went on to my next 10 favorites, and so on until I settled on 40. Basically after 40 I felt like I was just picking things for the sake of reaching 50, so I backed off and called it good at 40. So here, in reverse order is my Top 40 of the decade.

40. Koop - Waltz For Koop

39. Marissa Nadler - Songs III: Bird On The Water

38. Felice Brothers - Felice Brothers

37. Sondre Lerche - Two Way Monologue

36. Patty Griffin - Impossible Dream - Two of the most perfectly beautiful songs I've ever heard are on this one album. They alone basically put them on this list.

35. Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress

34. Dining Rooms - Numero Deux

33. Magic Numbers - Magic Numbers

32. Tilly & The Wall - Wild Like Children

31. The Decemberists - Her Majesty

30. Joanna Newsom - Ys

29. Bowerbirds - Upper Air

28. Laura Viers - Carbon Glacier

27. The Decemberists - Castaways & Cutouts

26. Divine Comedy - Absent Friends

25. Rufus Wainwright - Want - Originally two separate releases (Want One and Want Two), it was conceived as one big, beautiful work.

24. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema

23. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

22. Badly Drawn Boy - Have You Fed The Fish?

21. Dr. Dog - Easy Beat - Pure, uninhibited musical joy, recorded totally independently on 1/4 inch tape.

20. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest - Artful composition and construction, technically impressive yet cool. This band is downright intimidating.

19. Stereolab - Sound Dust

18. Of Montreal - Satanic Panic In The Attic - This album opened up a lot of new listening horizons for me.

17. Inara George - All Rise!

16. Eisley - Room Noises - I have never gotten tired of this album, unique yet familiar, and all beautiful.

15. Dr. Dog - Fate

14. Jurassic 5 - Quality Control

13. MIA - Kala - A delight to the ear with its wonderful use of sound collage, great rhythms and attitude. A real trip.

12. Elliott Smith - Figure 8

11. Divine Comedy - Regeneration - A real change from Neil Hannon's usual fare, but he pulls it off brilliantly.

10. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

9. Nick Lowe - The Convincer - A pure and classic songwriter. This is the creative peak of Nick's career in my opinion.

8. Elliott Smith - From A Basement On The Hill - Although it's controversial, I feel like Elliott Smith finally achieved the kind of sound aesthetic he had been after his whole recording career with this album.

7. Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther

6. Rufus Wainwright - Poses - Modern day art song.

5. Avett Brothers - Emotionalism - Brilliant simplicity that just grabbed me by the heart and held on for a long time.

4. Innocence Mission - Befriended - More heart grabbing simplicity. The perfect winter album.

3. Of Montreal - Aldhils Arboretum - I think this is a masterpiece of modern psychedelia, and Of Montreal's best album.

2. Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast - A passionately constructed work, one of the decade's earliest pop masterpieces, and another listening landmark for me.

1. Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs - Ben Folds is a major figure in contemporary pop. A brilliant composer, lyricist and performer, he has an uncanny understanding of the white middle-class experience, which he exploits, attacks, defends, and empathizes with most keenly on this outstanding concept album.

Lissie - Why You Runnin'?

Lissie has packed more pretty into the 20 minutes of Why You Runnin' than a lot of artists do in twice the time. This has a lot to do with the intimate handle she has on a range of classic styles, whether it's Stephen Foster Americana ("Oh Mississippi"), Loretta Lynn country ("Wedding Bells"), or even a bit of the soulful balladry of Roberta Flack ("Everywhere I Go"). This isn't to say Lissie doesn't imbue her songs with any sense of individuality--certainly she does, and that's clear right from the first guitar chord of the opening track with its ear-catching minor second. In the end though, it's her obvious love of the tried and true, and her ability to transcend mere admiring pastiche, as well as her powerful, longing and absolutely gorgeous voice that are this little gem's best attributes. 4/5

Why You Runnin' - Lissie

Port O'Brien - Threadbare

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Tonight's review is of an album that is the perfect complement to the post-feast torpor I'm experiencing.

"High Without The Hope 3", the first track on Port O'Brien's Threadbare, sounds like it came drifting in on a mist over the barren heath pictured on the album's cover, and into the dreams of Port O'Brien. It's a great way of setting the mood for an album which is all about mood. The prevailing mood is one of gloom, but it's a lived in gloom that doesn't evoke so much sorrow as empathy. The songs that follow don't stray too far from the soporific tones of the album's opener, and even when the brisk, R.E.M.ish "Sour Milk/Salt Water" comes along (and later "Leap Year"), it remains tempered by the overall low-pass equalization and murky reverb that define much of Threadbare's sound. The music is, for the most part, minimal in scope, which serves the spirit of the album, but does occasionally venture into broader musical territory, as in "Calm Me Down", which sounds a bit like Band of Horses, and also pays tribute to that band's penchant for anthemic ballads. This is a very nice album, and if it doesn't necessarily beg repeat listenings, it will at least continue to treat you well, like a warm friend, if you decide to make some return visits. 3.5/5

Threadbare - Port O'Brien

Fruit Bats - The Ruminant Band

When I read that Fruit Bats were from rainy Seattle I was a little surprised, because when I had been listening to The Ruminant Band, the music's bright, blonde tones put me in mind of California's sun-soaked wine region. The album is a joyous affair, a party, a carnival rich with attractions. There is a fair amount of diversity among these tracks, yet the party stays together, never fracturing into separate rooms; a kind of Hippie-ish jam band foundation acts as the glue for Fruit Bats' myriad influences (the droll fancies of Robyn Hitchcock, even a bit of the near-prog leanings of Supertramp to name just a couple). Whether these were specific influences on Fruit Bats or not, it's clear they drew from an interesting musical palate to craft this lovely piece of sunshine. 4/5

The Ruminant Band - Fruit Bats

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Though I'm not usually a fan of painstakingly tight production, for some reason I've always really liked Phoenix's brand of rhythmic perfection and their clean, clean tracks. I think it's something about the juxtaposition of their strict, dance-friendly production with classic pop chord sophistication. These are fun, locomotive songs with a nice balance of synthesized and organic instrumentation that also reward the musical ear. 4/5

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Pho...

Bowerbirds - Upper Air

This is a really lovely record. Where to begin? Great production with a really big room sound; broad, fully realized melodies; great male/female vocal chemistry; philosophically melancholic lyrics. Upper Air is also a marvelous example of how spare instrumentation can be made to sound opulently large and compelling through clear and immaculate sound engineering. One of 2009's best. 4.5/5

Upper Air - Bowerbirds

Blue Roses - Blue Roses

This album makes me think of what the Charlotte Churches and Hayley Westenras of the world could do with their (formerly) sweet, young voices besides peddling lowbrow kitsch in the cultural wasteland that is modern day public television music broadcasting. Honestly I don't know much about Blue Roses, or how old their lead singer is, but this is a very pretty record with much to admire--delicate acoustic instrumentation, intimate and homesick lyrics and melodies with understated arrangements and breezy vocal harmonies. This is a very pleasant listening experience. 4/5

Blue Roses - Blue Roses

Lightning Dust - Infinite Light

About a third of the way through Infinite Light, you realize that you aren't going to be able to pin down Lightning Dust to any one prevailing style or influence. The composer(s) are resourceful and seem to draw from a number of popular influences, including (but by no means limited to) electro-pop, musical theatre, lovelorn pop auteurs like (albeit less cynical than) Stephin Merritt, even Saucerful of Secrets era Pink Floyd, as on the last track "Take It Home." The lean orchestrations of chamber pop collide noticeably with a dramatic ambition worthy of thicker instrumentation--but this isn't a let down at all, it actually works wonderfully. The singer's voice is ghostlike with it's tense and rapidfire vibrato, which contributes to the sense of emotional urgency prevalent throughout the album. Infinite Light is a grandly modest work, and well worth checking out. 3.5/5

Infinite Light - Lightning Dus...

Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy

Kurt Vile's Childish Prodigy is one of the best albums I've heard all year. It's really straightforward, sonically pretty dirty (yet big & brilliant!), and acerbic. The mood is somewhat down, but a comforting sort of down, an "oh well, let's make the best of it" kind of down. The music itself is unobtrusively interesting and engaging, somehow modest and assertive at the same time. What a great find! 4.5/5

Childish Prodigy - Kurt Vile

Loney, Dear - Dear John

I listened to Loney Dear's latest, Dear John last night. I found it both new and interesting, and old and familiar. Old and familiar (isn't that the name of some kind of cheap whiskey?) because the harmonic structure tends to be strongly tied to a circle-of-fifths approach. Familiar chord patterns guide our ears pleasingly through centuries of tried-and-true basso continuo underpinnings, from Vivaldi to Jerome Kern. Loney, Dear even reveals to us a piece of this musical anchoring in the song "Harm/Slow" where Albinoni's famous organ adagio is thoroughly quoted.

Loney, Dear also gives us something new and interesting on Dear John. A beautifully realized collection of melodic songs that logically, carefully and unpretentiously manages to blend straight ahead pop, synthy dance, big orchestral sounds and more. It's a concept that works well and shows us that the intelligent blending of varied stylistic approaches (especially those styles which once seemed so non-reconcilable to one another) can work together towards a deeper refining of sophisticated pop artistry. 3.5/5

Listen for free at LaLa.com

Dear John on Polyvinyl Records

Loney, Dear's website